Orange, O2 Ordering Micro SIM For Apple iPad

Gemalto, a well known Micro SIM card manufacturer, has apparently sold "hundreds" of cards to O2 and Orange possibly as the two start to test Apple's iPad on their networks.

The tip was first revealed by Engadget. The iPad, although unlocked, will only be compatible with micro SIM, which could be seen as a sneaky way by the fruity company to allow networks to "lock" their customers.

We can't see any other reason why a device eight times the size of the iPhone has to reduce the size of its SIM card.

Furthermore, only one other device in the US uses the micro SIM, a children's GPS watch known as the Lok8u launched in January 2009 (ed : that was a watch).

Pocket-lint asked all the UK networks whether they plan to launch Micro SIM (and therefore support the iPad) in the future and was met with a "no comments" or some rather ambiguous signals.

Gemalto is primarily a digital security company based in France and which serves more than 400 mobile network operators worldwide totalling 700 million customers worldwide.

That said, have a look below, the size of both ICs on the mini SIM and the micro SIM are both similar which means that you should in theory be able to cut a mini SIM to the shape of a micro SIM one.